Kobojo completes a $7.5m (€5.3m) fund-raising to support the development of the company in France and internationally
Clipperton Finance acted as Sole Manager of the transaction.
Paris, London – April, 2011 – Clipperton Finance, a leading European corporate finance boutique dedicated to the High Tech and Media industries, today announced the closing of a $7.5million (€5.3 million) capital raising for Kobojo, the premier software editor in France and one of the leaders in Europe in the social gaming universe on Facebook and mobiles. The funds have been raised in this first round from Endeavour Vision, as a lead investor, and IDinvest Partners.
For the last 3 years, Kobojo has been editing and publishing a wide variety of innovative games and apps such as Goobox and PyramidVille. The company, which now has a workforce of 30 employees, intends to put these funds to good use to step up its development in France and internationally.
Kobojo already has a number of successful bestsellers under its belt. Their first game “Petite Questions entre Amis” [A few questions among friends] was a roaring success, gaining 8 million users in just two months. The team launched Goobox in July 2009, which gained 3 million users in just one month. From then on, Kobojo was a force to be reckoned with in the social gaming market, thanks to its technical expertise and its users, who have overwhelmingly acclaimed the Kobojo universe and their games.
Kobojo joined the Microsoft IDEES programme in 2010, winning the Microsoft BizSpark competition in May of that year. With its growth and growing popularity among the general public, Kobojo continues to forge ahead, creating the city building PyramidVille game on Facebook to immediate acclaim, with 1.6 million installations in less than 6 weeks in France.
“Raising the funds is in line with Kobojo’s strategic goals to become international and create new user experiences. We want to localise versions of our games in markets with increasing demand for social gaming, in particular Spain, Germany, Italy and Turkey. These funds will also help us focus on R&D to enable us to provide these games on various platforms such as Smartphones and touch tablets, as well as Facebook in the very near future.” says Vincent Vergonjeanne, VP for Products and Strategy at Kobojo.
Franck Tetzlaff, Kobojo CEO added: “Clipperton’s work has enabled us to find the perfect investors’ group for this first round of funding. Their international investors’ network and their knowledge of the social gaming sector were key for the success of this transaction and enabled us to remain focused on the game development throughout the process”
Thibaut Revel and Nicolas von Bülow, the Partners in charge of the transaction alongside Alexis Barba, Associate, commented “We are thrilled to have assisted Kobojo in their first institutional financing. They are one of the most promising gaming companies emerging in Europe. Their proven ability to develop both casual and role playing social games as well as the outstanding programming and game design skills of the managers have convinced the investors that they are in a position to become a European leader in their space.”
For more information, please contact:
Clipperton Finance
Thibaut Revel, Partner, trevel@clipperton.net
Nicolas von Bülow, Partner, nvonbulow@clipperton.net
Alexis Barba, Associate, abarba@clipperton.net
About Clipperton Finance
Based in Paris and London, Clipperton Finance is a European corporate finance boutique dedicated to the High Tech and Media industries. Clipperton is focused on start-up and high-growth companies in the Internet, Software, Telecom, Components, CleanTech, MedTech and Media spaces, advising them in their financial transactions: fundraising/capital increases and Mergers & Acquisitions. Over the past years the company and its team have successfully structured numerous high level international transactions in the European High Tech sector.
About Kobojo
Set up in 2008, Kobojo edits and publishes a wide variety of innovative games and apps. With successes such as the Goobox platform and the PyramidVille app, Kobojo games aim to entertain all gamers of all ages connected on multiple media from Facebook to mobiles. For more information go tohttp://www.kobojo.com/